Looking ahead to COP19 and future international climate negotiations:

2013/05/09: RTCC: Climate ambition criteria set to face UN debate in Warsaw
Specific criteria that countries can base emission reduction plans on needs be agreed at the Warsaw climate summit at the end of 2013, an influential campaign group has warned. The Climate Action Network (CAN) wants the UN to host an ‘equity review’ to establish a consistent set of indicators developed and developing countries can use to assess their own climate ambition. Observers fear that unless accepted measurements of climate ambition can be established, it could be virtually impossible to construct an effective global climate deal in 2015.

2013/05/11: ABC(Au): Wollongong’s upland swamps ‘critically endangered’
Wollongong’s wetland swamps have been identified as critically endangered. A team of international scientists is drawing up a red list of ecosystems on the brink of extinction and the Woronora upland swamps is on the list. The study by the International union for conservation of nature has looked at twenty ecosystems around the world so far across six continents and three oceans.

2013/05/09: ABC(Au): ‘Red List’ introduced to protect at risk ecosystems
A team of international scientists is drawing up a “Red List” identifying ecosystems on the brink of extinction – and Australia appears eight times. The global report is similar to what already exists for animal and plant species that are threatened, vulnerable or on the brink of extinction. Led by a team of Australian scientists, in co-operation with the United Nations affiliated conservation body the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the study aims to assess every major ecosystem around the world by 2025.

2013/05/10: BBerg: Greenhouse Gases Hit Threshold Unseen in 3 Million Years
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere surpassed 400 parts per million for the first time since measurements began, breaching a threshold not seen for 3 million years. The main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming averaged 400.03 parts per million at a monitoring station on Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano yesterday, according to data published today on the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website. The administration’s data stretches back to 1958.

It is evident that the Fukushima disaster is going to persist for some time. TEPCO says 6 to 9 months. The previous Japanese Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, said decades. Now the Japanese government is talking about 30 years. [Whoops, that has now been updated to 40 years.]
And the IAEA is now saying 40 years too.
We’ll see.
At any rate this situation is not going to be resolved any time soon and deserves its own section.
Meanwhile…
It is very difficult to know for sure what is really going on at Fukushima. Between the company [TEPCO], the Japanese government, the Japanese regulator [NISA], the international monitor [IAEA], as well as independent analysts and commentators, there is a confusing mish-mash of information. One has to evaluate both the content and the source of propagated information.
How knowledgeable are they [about nuclear power and about Japan]?
Do they have an agenda?
Are they pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear?
Do they want to write a good news story?
Do they want to write a bad news story?
Where do they rate on a scale of sensationalism?
Where do they rate on a scale of play-it-down-ness?
One fundamental question I would like to see answered:
If the reactors are in meltdown, how can they be in cold shutdown?

2013/05/08: Asahi: Fukushima closes 2 parking lots for emergency decontamination work
Fukushima – Two parking lots in the city of Fukushima were declared off-limits to the public on May 7 after high concentrations of radioactive cesium were detected in the exposed soil there. Local authorities shut down the parking lots for emergency decontamination operations after a nonprofit organization found a maximum of 430,000 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium during a survey conducted between April 29-May 2 at the behest of local residents. The Citizen’s Radioactivity Measuring Station also detected a maximum level of airborne radiation at 3.8 microsieverts per hour, above the benchmark for evacuation, at the two sites.

2013/05/09: BBC: Study of lead levels in rice under scrutiny
Tests indicating that rice imported to the US contained high levels of lead have been cast into doubt. At a conference in April, researchers reported that commercially available rice contained many times more lead than US food authorities deemed safe. The findings sparked international concern over imported rice. But preliminary independent checks on the findings have failed to replicate the results, and tests suggest the equipment used may have been to blame.

2013/04/23: BBC: Scottish food bank requests more than double
A charity that provides emergency food banks says the number of people using them in Scotland more than doubled last year. The Trussell Trust said 14,318 people were helped during 2012-13, up from 5,726 the previous year. It said almost a third of these cases were children.

The state of the world’s fisheries is a concern:

2013/05/07: ABC(Au): Drought impacting Gulf barra fishers
It’s not just those on the land who are feeling the effects of the drought, fisherman in northern parts of the country are too. Gary Ward is the chairman of Gulf of Carpentaria commercial fishers association and has noticed a drastic drop in barramundi numbers. He says the missing wet season is to blame for an 80 per cent reduction compared to last year.

2013/05/09: BBC: Fears of forest elephant slaughter in Central Africa
A heavily armed gang has killed an unknown number of elephants at a world heritage site in the Central African Republic. WWF says that ivory poachers were seen using a scientist’s observation platform to shoot the animals, which gather there in large numbers. The campaigners say they are extremely worried about the elephants in Dzanga-Ndoki national park. The head of CITES has also expressed grave concern about the animals’ fate.

2013/05/08: BBC: Cold War bunkers offer bats refuge from killer disease
Cold War nuclear bunkers are the latest attempt to safeguard US bat populations under attack from white-nose syndrome. Scientists have converted two of the 43 bunkers at the former Loring Air Force Base, Maine, which has been a wildlife reserve since the mid-1990s. The artificial hibernacula are designed to safeguard bats from the disease that was first recorded in the US in 2006. White-nose syndrome (WNS) has killed up to an estimated 6.7 million bats so far and is continuing to spread.

2013/05/07: ABC(Au): Megafauna victims of ‘climate not humans’
Fierce mega-debate There is no evidence to support the idea that humans were primarily responsible for wiping out the extraordinary gigantic animals that once roamed Australia, says a group of Australian and US scientists. The claim is the latest salvo in a longstanding and ferocious scientific disagreement over what killed animals such as 100 kilogram marsupial lions, rhinoceros-sized marsupial Diprotodons and goannas as big as large saltwater crocodiles. On one side of the debate, including the authors of the latest paper, are researchers who suggest megafauna gradually died out as climate change altered the landscape of Sahul, the single Pleistocene-era landmass that combined Australia and New Guinea. On the other side, are those who argue that humans hunted the animals out of existence, who point to evidence suggesting the megafauna extinction occurred within 10,000 years of people arriving in Australia for the first time.

Meanwhile in near earth orbit:

2013/05/08: BBC: ESA’s Vega rocket puts Proba-V vegetation mission in orbit
Europe’s Vega rocket has successfully completed its second mission. The vehicle left the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana at 23:06 local time on Monday (02:06 GMT, Tuesday), placing three satellites in orbit. Its primary payload was the 140kg Proba-V spacecraft. This will acquire pictures of land use and vegetation changes from an altitude of 820km, maintaining an important data series started by the French Spot satellites in the late 1990s.

2013/05/10: ABC(Au): Adelaide hills bushfire threatens homes
A bushfire at Cherryville in the Adelaide hills continues to threaten homes and has prompted more than 250 hills residents to leave the area. More than 200 hectares of scrub have been blackened in an area near Fernhurst, Mawson and Sixth Creek Roads.

Acidification is changing the oceans:

2013/05/06: BBC: Arctic Ocean ‘acidifying rapidly’
The Arctic seas are being made rapidly more acidic by carbon-dioxide emissions, according to a new report. Scientists from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) monitored widespread changes in ocean chemistry in the region. They say even if CO2 emissions stopped now, it would take tens of thousands of years for Arctic Ocean chemistry to revert to pre-industrial levels.

Glaciers are melting:

Sea levels are rising:

2013/05/11: ABC(Au): Study sheds light on glacier melt
A team of international researchers is predicting sea level rise from ice movement over the next century will not be as extreme as first thought. Scientists have mapped the behaviour of four glaciers in Greenland and found breakaway ice will probably not add as much to sea levels as previously thought. The glaciers are expected to account for 18 centimetres of global sea level rise by the turn of the century.

2013/05/06: BBC: Nepal floods change river course and threaten tourism
A major tourism destination in western Nepal faces increased risk of natural disasters following a devastating flood last year, experts have warned. They say the sudden flood on the Seti river, which killed more than 60 people, has brought changes in the course and flow-pattern of the river. These changes are now threatening human settlements in and around Nepal’s second-largest city Pokhara. The changes may set the stage for serious effects on tourism in the area.

2013/05/09: ABC(Au): Moon mission paves way to ‘green’ steel
Green steel The dream of “green” steel is a reality with US scientists unveiling a new method of extracting metallic iron from its ore while curbing carbon dioxide emissions. The process uses electrolysis and, according to its developers, will eventually result in cheaper steel of higher purity.

2013/05/06: JapanTimes: Japanese cloud seeding tests work for second year in row
A Japanese research team has succeeded in producing artificial rain for two consecutive years, proving the effectiveness of spraying liquid carbonic acid onto the bottoms of clouds. The researchers from Kyushu University and Fukuoka University will report on their experiments with inducing artificial rainfall in February 2012 and March 2013 around the Izu Islands at a meeting of the Meteorological Society of Japan in Tokyo on May 15.

What’s new in conservation?

2013/05/10: BBC: Establishing UK tree seed bank ‘crucial’
The UK’s first national collection of tree seeds has been established, which scientists say is crucial as a growing array of pests threaten native species. Co-ordinated by Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank, it aims to safeguard the genetic diversity of the UK’s tree flora. The scheme will initially target 50 native species, including the common ash, which is under threat across Europe from ash dieback. The project’s funding has been provided by the People’s Postcode Lottery.

What’s new in models?

2013/05/09: RTCC: IPCC models underestimate role of CO2 in warming
The Earth’s climate is more sensitive to changes in CO2 than previously thought, according to new research. New data taken from an Arctic sediment core that has recorded the climate for the past 3.6m years, suggests climate models, including those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have not given enough weighting to CO2’s role in the changing climate.

South [& East] China Sea tension persists:

2013/05/12: Xinhuanet: Taiwan asks Philippine response to fisherman killing in 72 hours
Taiwan’s leader Ma Ying-jeou vowed to give the Philippines 72 hours to respond to demands regarding the shooting death of a Taiwanese fisherman at sea, or Taiwan will take actions to retaliate. Ma demanded the Philippines to apologize, clarify the truth and punish people held responsible, offer compensation for the death and the damage to the fishing boat, and start negotiations with Taiwan on a fishery agreement as soon as possible, according to a statement posted on the website of Taiwanese authority. “If the Philippine government does not make a positive response within 72 hours,” Taiwan will freeze on all applications of Philippine laborers, recall its representative to the Philippines and ask the representative of the Philippines in Taipei to leave, the statement said.

2013/05/12: BBC: Taiwan ultimatum to Philippines over fisherman’s death
The government of Taiwan has given the Philippines until Wednesday to apologise for the death of a Taiwanese fisherman whose vessel was fired on by the Philippine coastguard. Taiwan is also demanding compensation and the arrest of those responsible. It has warned the Philippines of diplomatic and economic measures if it does not respond positively.

2013/05/12: ABC(Au): Taiwan considers sanctions over fisherman death
Taiwan says it will consider sanctions against the Philippines over the shooting of a fisherman by the Philippines Coast Guard. The Philippines government said it would not apologise for the incident until an investigation had taken place, after Taiwan had earlier demanded one. The 65-year-old fisherman, Hung Shih-cheng, died after the Philippines Coast Guard fired at a Taiwanese fishing boat on which he was a crew member. President Ma Yin-Jeou says Taiwan will seek justice for the fisherman’s death, demanding compensation and a full investigation as well as the apology.

What are the activists up to?

2013/05/09: RT: Monsanto protests scheduled in 36 countries
An international protest planned for later this month against biotechnology company Monsanto is slated to span six continents and include demonstrations in dozens of countries around the globe. Amid growing concerns over St. Louis, Missouri-based Monsanto and the impact the company is having on agriculture, activists have planned rallies for later this month in 36 countries.

2013/05/06: ABC(Au): Train station targeted by environment campaigners
Environment group Quit Coal has unfurled a huge banner at Flinders Street Station in Melbourne to protest against the lack of action on renewable energy. The banner which says ‘Get off the coal train and on track for renewables’ was raised above the iconic clocks on the main Melbourne train station during the morning peak. The group has attacked Premier Denis Napthine’s policies saying he has inherited Ted Baillieu’s “regressive” polices on brown coal and coal seam gas. “Premiers come and go, but climate change will be a long-term challenge for Victoria,” said Chloe Aldenhove, of Quit Coal.

So what’s new on the education front?

While in the UK:

2013/05/10: Guardian(UK): Key climate change adviser resigns from Cameron post
Ben Moxham, senior policy adviser and former aide to BP chief Lord Browne, becomes latest energy official to quit
[…]
His resignation follows an exodus of leading energy officials in recent weeks. Ravi Gurumurthy and Jonathan Brearley, who were advisers at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), and architects of key proposed energy reforms, each left though the energy bill is still making going through parliament

2013/05/06: BBerg: EU Pollution Push in Disarray on Debt Crisis Distracttion
Europe’s program to halt climate change is in disarray with lawmakers in the region expressing concern the drift is undermining the planet’s most significant effort to combat global warming. Members of the European Parliament’s environment committee meet today for a second time to revive a plan the full assembly rejected that would have boosted the cost of greenhouse-gas emissions. The rebuff left the cost of pollution near a record low, leaving companies with less incentive to reduce emissions. The situation “reflects a sea-change against climate policy,” said European Green Party Co-Chair Reinhard Buetikofer, who supported the plan. The effort to limit carbon gases “is not being perceived as an opportunity by industry but rather a burden,” he said, adding that the decision “destroyed the foundation of common European climate policy.”

2013/05/07: ABC(Au): Brown the new Fraser: Premier
The Tasmanian Premier has suggested the former Australian Greens Leader, Bob Brown, is becoming irrelevant to the Green cause. Lara Giddings has compared Mr Brown to former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser who is now ‘just a citizen.’ Mr Brown has condemned the forest peace deal legislation which four of the five Tasmanian Greens MPs supported in Parliament last week. He has criticised the green groups who negotiated the deal, saying they were outmanoeuvred by the logging industry.

2013/05/06: ABC(Au): Greens hit back over forest deal lashing
Tasmanian Greens MP Cassy O’Connor has hit back at critics of her party’s decision to support the amended forestry peace deal legislation. Last week, four of the five state Greens MPs backed the bill despite the party’s national leader Christine Milne opposing it. Prominent environmentalist and author Richard Flanagan lashed out at the state Greens’ decision in an online opinion piece,

2013/05/09: ABC(Au): One Nation co-founder told to refile Abbott lawsuit
One Nation’s co-founder has been ordered to resubmit a civil claim against Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott. David Ettridge is suing Mr Abbott for $1.5 million, alleging he unlawfully assisted and encouraged litigation against One Nation in 1998 that led to the party being deregistered.

2013/05/08: ABC(Au): Govt dumps carbon package tax cuts
The Federal Government has confirmed it’s dumping another of its program, shelving the 2015 tax cuts linked to its carbon package because Treasury is downgrading the expected revenue from carbon permits. The Government had previously ruled out dumping the cuts, but the big revenue shortage is taking its toll on Labor promises. Hardly surprisingly, the Opposition has pounced on Labor for ditching two commitments in two days.

2013/05/08: ABC(Au): Combet confirms carbon trading tax cut on hold
Climate Change Minister Greg Combet has confirmed the 2015 tax cut associated with the carbon trading scheme will not go ahead because of the drop in the carbon price in Europe. Mr Combet says the Government now thinks the carbon price will not be as high as the $29 per tonne originally forecast. He says that means there will not be a need to increase the tax free threshold as promised.

2013/05/12: ABC(Au): Confusion over Slipper’s split from Palmer’s party
Confusion surrounds the departure of federal independent MP Peter Slipper from Queensland billionaire Clive Palmer’s new political party. The former Liberal MP applied to join the United Australia Party (UAP), which is now changing its name to the Palmer United Party. Yesterday the party issued a statement indicating Mr Slipper’s application had been accepted. But just hours later, it issued another statement reversing that decision.

And South America:

2013/05/06: Xinhuanet: Petrocaribe summit ends with plan for economic zone, new members
Petrocaribe member states agreed to create a new economic zone and granted membership to Honduras and Guatemala at their 7th summit that ended here on Sunday. Venezuela created Petrocaribe in 2005 to sell fuel to Latin American and Caribbean nations at cheaper prices and help finance their oil infrastructure projects. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said the planned economic zone for Petrocaribe member states and other regional blocs is designed to boost regional development by promoting joint investments in trade, tourism, industry, agribusiness and science. Venezuela has also proposed the establishment of a permanent headquarters in Caracas for the Petrocaribe Secretariat. In 2012, Venezuela supplied on average 108,000 barrels of oil a day to 14 Petrocaribe members, or 40 percent of their energy needs.

2013/05/10: RTCC: Canada wears climate pariah label “with honour”A group of senior academics issued a letter this week to the Canadian government, criticising it for ignoring the threat of climate change. It was the latest in a long line of reprimands for a nation that has been described as a “pariah” at the international climate talks.

2013/05/04: G&M: Al Gore isn’t overly pleased with Canada
Al Gore is back. A dozen years after he was denied the U.S. presidency and turned his attention to the warming atmosphere (and won the Nobel Peace Prize, an Academy Award and a Grammy), he is opening his lens wider.The result is The Future, a 500-page examination of the six major forces that he believes are producing dramatic change in the world: an increase in economic globalization; an expansion of digital communications; a balance of power moving away from the United States; an economic system that produces inequality and overconsumption; a set of revolutions in biotechnology and the life sciences and, of course, the world’s warming atmosphere and damaged ecosystems.

The battle over the Northern Gateway pipeline rages on:

2013/05/05: CBC: Enbridge breaks safety rules at pump stations across Canada
Company’s defence is that National Energy Board is interpreting rules differently The biggest oil and gas pipeline company in Canada is breaking National Energy Board safety rules at 117 of its 125 pump stations across the country, but Enbridge says it’s not to blame. Enbridge was ordered by the Canadian energy regulator to disclose whether or not it had backup power to operate emergency shut-down systems in the facilities that keep oil flowing through its pipes. The company told the NEB only eight of its pump stations complied with the board’s backup power system regulation. On top of that, Enbridge disclosed that 83 of its pump stations were missing emergency shut-down buttons. But the NEB admits that it has only just started to concentrate inspections on regulations covering backup power and shut-down systems. The regulations are anywhere from 14 to 19 years old.

Another step forward in salvaging the Experimental Lakes Area:

2013/05/09: PostMedia: Fisheries Department reaches deal with think tank to save freshwater research facility
Some federal scientists working at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans may soon gain new freedom to control their research and speak in public, under a tentative deal announced Thursday to transfer management of a world-renowned freshwater research facility that opened in 1968. The arrangement would transfer the management of the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA), a research site made up of dozens of lakes near Kenora in northwestern Ontario, to a Manitoba-based think tank, the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

2013/05/06: CBC: Canada loses WTO appeal over Ontario’s green energy program
The World Trade Organization’s appeal body has upheld complaints from the EU and Japan that Ontario’s program to promote green energy use violates international trade rules. The WTO’s appellate body confirmed the Ontario program to encourage the development of wind and solar power discriminates against foreign firms because Ontario’s Green Energy Act mandates that a certain percentage of solar and wind components be domestically made.

2013/05/09: BBerg: N.Y. Senate Fracking Backer Tied to Firm With Gas Lease
Senator Tom Libous, a champion of fracking in the New York Legislature, is blocking a bill that would delay drilling for natural gas for at least two more years. Passage of the measure would harm the prospects of a real-estate company founded by Libous’s wife and run by a business partner and campaign donor. The donor, Luciano Piccirilli, operates Da Vinci II LLC, which owns 230 acres near Oneonta, west of Albany. Da Vinci II’s rights to underground natural gas are leased to a drilling company, property and corporate records show. Piccirilli’s company stands to gain if the 60-year-old Binghamton Republican senator stymies opponents of fracking…

With the deficit hawks panicking about any issue handy, there has been talk of a carbon tax solution:

2013/05/05: TheHill:e2W: Carbon tax backers quietly forge ahead
Activists are quietly forging ahead with their campaign for carbon taxes despite long odds on Capitol Hill. Bob Inglis, a former GOP House member from South Carolina, is part of a very loose collection of policy wonks and advocates fighting to change the politics of taxing emissions.

2013/05/09: BBC: North American firms quit shale gas fracking in Poland
Two North American energy firms have ended their shale gas fracking operations in Poland. Talisman Energy of Canada and the US oil company Marathon said they were pulling out of what is seen as potentially one of the largest sources of shale gas in Europe. Marathon said it decision was based on “unsuccessful attempts to find commercial levels of hydrocarbons”. Poland had hoped the shale gas deposits would replace imports from Russia. The departure of the two companies represents a major blow to the country’s ambitions.

On the coal front:

2013/05/08: WSWS: Patriot Coal bankruptcy threatens thousands of US miners, retirees
Around 2,000 active and retired miners and their supporters converged on the federal courthouse in St. Louis last week for the start of bankruptcy hearings for Patriot Coal. Patriot, which filed for Chapter 11 protection last summer, is attempting to use the proceedings to rid itself of health care and pension obligations for more than 1,650 active union miners and some 13,000 retirees.

And in pipeline news:

2013/05/08: CBC: Enbridge looks to increase U.S. pipeline capacity
Calgary company wants U.S. approval to almost double the capacity of a pipeline to Wisconsin Enbridge is seeking U.S. approval to pump more crude through an Alberta-to-Wisconsin pipeline — a process the company expects to be easier than the one TransCanada is facing with its Keystone XL pipeline.

2013/05/07: CSM: California urges record $2.5 billion fine for natural gas blast
One of the country’s largest utility companies [Pacific Gas and Electric Co.] could face a record $2.5 billion fine for its role in a 2010 natural gas pipeline explosion that killed eight people, injured 66, and destroyed 38 houses. If adopted, it would be the largest penalty ever levied by a state regulatory body in the US.

2013/05/07: ABC(Au): Wind farm report puts pressure on government restrictions
A company that makes wind turbines is urging the Victorian Government to respond to a Health Department report by ending restrictions on wind farms in the state. The report by the Victorian Health Department dismissed concerns that wind farm noise makes people ill, although it did find that the noise could be annoying.

2013/05/07: WSWS: US concerns about Japanese nuclear reprocessing
The Wall Street Journal published an article on May 1 entitled “Japan’s nuclear plan unsettles US.” It indicated concerns in Washington that the opening of a huge reprocessing plant could be used to stockpile plutonium for the future manufacture of nuclear weapons. The Rokkasho reprocessing facility in northern Honshu can produce nine tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium annually, or enough to construct up to 2,000 bombs. While Japanese officials insist that the plutonium will be used solely to provide nuclear power, only two of the country’s 50 nuclear power reactors are currently operating.

Nuclear waste storage requires _very_ long term thinking:

2013/05/09: Yahoo:SciAm: Hanford Nuclear Waste Cleanup Plant May Be Too Dangerous
The most toxic and voluminous nuclear waste in the U.S. — 208 million liters — sits in decaying underground tanks at the Hanford Site (a nuclear reservation) in southeastern Washington State. It accumulated there from the middle of World War II, when the Manhattan Project invented the first nuclear weapon, to 1987, when the last reactor shut down. The federal government’s current attempt at a permanent solution for safely storing that waste for centuries — the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant here — has hit a major snag in the form of potential chain reactions, hydrogen explosions and leaks from metal corrosion. And the revelation last February that six more of the storage tanks are currently leaking has further ramped up the pressure for resolution.

After decades of research, experimentation and political inertia, the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) started building the “Vit Plant” at Hanford in 2000. It’s intended to sequester the waste in stainless steel-encased glass logs, a process known as vitrification (hence “Vit”), so it cannot escape into the environment, barring natural disasters like earthquakes or catastrophic fires. But progress on the plant slowed to a crawl last August, when numerous interested parties acknowledged that the plant’s design might present serious safety risks. In response, then-Energy Secretary Steven Chu appointed an expert panel to find a way forward. Because 60 of the 177 underground tanks have already leaked and all are at increasing risk to do so, solving the problem is urgent.

This week in the Gee Whiz File:

2013/05/09: CCurrents: Patent Filing Claims Solar Energy ‘Breakthrough’
Ronald Ace, photographed at his home in Laurel, Maryland, May 4, 2013, said his flat-panel “Solar Traps,” which can be mounted on rooftops or used in power plants, will shatter barriers that have stymied efforts to make solar energy cheap, clean and reliable. His claimed discoveries, which exist only on paper so far…

Low Key Plug

My first novel Water was published in Canada May, 2007. The American release was in October. An Introductionto the novel is available, along with the Unpublished Forewordand the Launch Talk(which includes some quotations), An overview of my writing is available here.

A Simple Plea

Webmasters, web coders and content providers have mercy on your low bandwidth brethren. Because I am on dial-up, I am a text surfer — no images, no javascript and no flash. When you post a graphic, will you please use the alt text field … and when you embed a youtube/vimeo/flash video, please add some minimal description. Thank you.

<regards>

-het

P.S. Recent postings can be found in the week archive and the ancient postings can be accessed here, which should open to this.

“Whatever lies ahead, we know its main dimensions will emerge over the next two decades. The global economy is already so far above sustainable levels that there is very little time left for the fantasy of an infnite globe. We know that adjustment will be a huge task. It will entail a revolution as profound as the agricultural and industrial revolutions. We appreciate the difficulty of finding solutions to problems such as poverty and employment, for which growth has been, so far, the world’s only accepted hope. But we also know that reliance on growth involves a false hope, because such growth cannot be sustained. Blind pursuit of physical growth in a finite world ultimately makes most problems worse; better solutions to our real problems are possible.” -Meadows et al., Limits to Growth, page 12